Archive for the ‘Susan Rice’ Category

Barack Obama told supporters last October: “I promise you. We won’t just win New Hampshire. We will win this election and, you and I together, we’re going to change the country and change the world.”

Key to that Messianic world changing goal for Obams has always been a full embrace of the U.N. and internationalism. Obama’s Ambassador to the U.N. is one of his most liberal advisors and a firm believer in the U.N. as an arbiter of what’s best for the world.

But now maybe some new perspective is being applied at the Obama White House…..

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By Colum Lynch
The Washington Post

The Obama administration scolded the president of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, saying that his frequent public attacks against the United States and Israel are undercutting the standing of the world’s most representative body.

The rebuke comes one day after Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann lashed out at the United States during a visit to Tehran, where he met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior Iranian officials. The leftist Nicaraguan priest and diplomat defended Iran’s nuclear program as peaceful and said the United States has not cooperated with other countries at the United Nations, according to Iranian news reports.

Last week, d’Escoto also criticized the U.S. imprisonment of five Cuban agents convicted on espionage charges in 2001, and he urged the United Nations’ Geneva-based Human Rights Council to look into alleged human rights abuses by U.S.-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, charging that “there are over 1 million civilian deaths in Iraq as a direct result of the U.S.-led aggression and occupation.”

Earth shaking news today that Pressident Barack Obama has honored President Hamid Karzai’s request for Afghanistan’s official representation in the strategic review on the future of the U.S. and Afghanistan.

Karsai may have gotten the idea from U.S. Chaiman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen who has an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post under the headline “Trust is the Coin of the Realm.”

Too bad there was no such effort to involve Republicans in the formulation of the “strategic review” that built the just passed economic stimulus.

That’s because by most accounts, there was no real strategic review on the future of the American economy and what to do next by Team Obama, that we know about, for sure, even given the pledge on “transparency;” and the Republican involvement in the formulation of the stimulus was only given lip service.

We write this fittingly on Valentine’s Day; a day that is often charged with lip service.

Note to President Obama: Congressional Republicans represent something like 47% of the American voter population that voted for the other guy.

In Kabul, Afghanistan, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke said President Obama welcomed President Karzai’s recommendation for his side’s total involvment in the U.S. planning effort.

Karzai said his foreign minister, Dadfar Rangin Spanta, would head the delegation.

Memo to Dadfar Rangin Spanta: when you meet Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid you are in trouble. The “strategic review” is finished, if the stimulus is any guide.

Now maybe the White House, which honored Republicans before the vote on the stimulus with photo opportunity meetings with the president, a cocktail party, a Super Bowl feed complete with peanuts, and not one actual working group of real substance at the White House, Old Executive (excuse me, I’m old: Eisenhower) Office Building, or in the House or the Senate Office Buildings — will send a special envoy to meet Republicans.

I mean, there is a special envoy to the Middle East, isn’t there? To Afghanistan? Even Susan Rice, Ambassador to the U.N. is now said to have Cabinet Rank?

Where’s the outreach to Repubicans — and their 47% of the electorate — that has productive intention, real merit, and invites seriously serious input?

Real outreach to Republicans doesn’t exist and hasn’t yet in this presidency.

Trust is not the coin of this realm.

Let’s see: we need a White House special envoy to Republicans. We are just thinking of guys that won’t be laughed at or ridiculed by say Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, John McCain, or talking heads like Karl Rove and Charles Krauthammer.

How about Rahm Emanuel or Jimmy Carter?

No, maybe not.

Trust is not the coin of Rahm. Ask Judd Gregg.

And Afghanistan should know that the “bipartisanship” they really seek is not the kind of bipolar treatment that Democrats just gave Republicans during the stimulus enema.

Hint to White House: you don’t need a special envoy to Rush Limbaugh. Republicans only like him for his entertainment value….

But maybe the president himself could still be the special envoy to Republicans in the spirit of trust and bipartisanship?

Maybe not.

The president’s record on “outrach” and bipartisanship to Republicans, and trasparency, so far, I mean during the stimulus, is like purchased sex with a working girl; it is sleezy and meaningless. Maybe he needs some chachki toys or aluminum key chains with little hand painted “Air Force One” or “White House” gimmicks or the presidential Great Seal. You know, creations to hand out to Republicans….. Or maybe a little yellow tractor from Caterpillar on a key chain…. Or Abe Lincoln to remind one of two great presidents….

Karzai: watch out. It’s not just the Taliban that will keep you awake with worry about trust.

If you get peanuts at the White House watch out. And don’t be surprised….

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (R) talks with U.S. Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke in Kabul February 15, 2009.REUTERS/Omar Sobhani (AFGHANISTAN)

Psst: Karzai. If this is your agreement at the end of the ‘strategic review’ and you get it just before decision time, BEND OVER. House GOP leader John Boehner shows a copy of the massive bill, which he and every other Republican in the House opposed, along with seven Democrats. Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Special envoy material….. Trust is the coin….Leadership, bipartisanship, transparency, honesty, integrity and clout? Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel gestures prior to the inauguration ceremony of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, in Washington, January 20, 2009.(Jim Young – UNITED STATES/Reuters)

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.

By Dick Morris
The Hill

Since her designation:

Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.

• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

• Samantha Power, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of “multilateral affairs.”

• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the NSC’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.

• Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?

While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. ….

George Bush has been such a good ally to Israel that most members of the United Nations said last night they were unable to get any statement condemning the bloodletting in Gaza out the door because of the U.S.

Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi said the United States during the discussions objected to “any outcome” on the proposed statement.
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Egypt’s U.N. Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said it was regrettable that one permanent council member — a clear reference to the U.S. — refused to accept any statement at a time when “the aggression is escalating and more people are dying and the military attack on the ground is at its full scale.”

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. observer, said: “We have war. We have aggression against the Palestinian people, and it is a sad and tragic moment when the Security Council cannot address this issue by at least demanding from Israel … to stop this aggression immediately.”

But the Obama camp was silent, almost, speaking only to again say there can only be one president at a time and that Obama was monitoring the situation “along with other global events.”
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Not everyone was happy with that.
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Obama’s muted response has already drawn the anger of some in the Middle East.

“The start is not good,” said Khaled Meshaal, leader of the Hamas Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since June 2007, said of the Obama statement.

“You commented on Mumbai but you say nothing about the crime of the enemy (Israel). This policy of double standards should stop.”

In July Barack Obama sought to boost his Jewish vote back in America with an emotional stump-speech in Sderot, a community in Israel which is a target for much of the Palestinian rocket-fire from Gaza.

Referring to his children Malia, 9, and Sasha, 7, the then US presidential candidate said: “If somebody is sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that – and I’d expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

But Israelis believes that Obama can and will never support them the way Bush has — and that in part drove the timing of the ongoing assault on Gaza.

Paul McGeough wrote for The Advocate in Australia, “If Israel was to act against Hamas, it needed to move in these last days of the Bush presidency because, despite his words in Sderot, Israel worries that the incoming American president might be less supportive than his predecessor.”

Bush has often ignored the UN. He even sent a very combatative Ambassador to the U.N. in New York, John Bolton.

Obama says he will embrace the UN and has said he’ll make his choice as Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, a cabinet level officer.

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Israel’s leaders are asking themselves two questions: Is the cost of sending sufficient ground forces into Gaza just too high? And, upon his inauguration on Jan. 20, will President Obama undercut Israel’s counterterror offensive before its goals have been reached?

Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.

By By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER
The New York Times
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Mrs. Clinton is recruiting Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Mr. Lew’s focus, they said, will be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. He and James B. Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, are to be Mrs. Clinton’s chief lieutenants.

Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Mrs. Clinton’s, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.

The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard C. Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East.

As Mrs. Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president’s office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy.

Given Mrs. Clinton’s prominence, expanding the department’s portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful cabinet members.

Mrs. Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Mr. Ross’s name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, as have those of Mr. Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel.

The Bush administration has made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally handled most peacemaking initiatives, which has meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results.

With several senior, experienced foreign policy people at his side, President-elect Barack Obama has done what many of us might do: he has sent two out of the room, kept one and made another a domestic policy chieftain.

Vice President-elect and former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden will run middle class education, training and jobs programs…..

Biden is now a “domestic.”

Former Obama rival Hillary Clinton will be out of the U.S. Senate where she could harass Obama from the sidelines and she is now working for Obama from Foggy Bottom. This gets Clintons out of the Senate and out of the White House too. And one false move and Hillary is jobless without even a shot at the Senate again for some time.

The Governor of New York might just replace the experiened Mrs. Clinton with a newby Kennedy; which shouldn’t worry the White House.

And Susan Rice, one of the most experienced and liberal Obama foreign policy aides will be in New York at the U.N. and not in the Oval Office.

Who will be in the Oval with President Obama? Former Marine Corps General James Jones, the National Security Advisor. And Rahm Emanuel. Maybe.

All this will make President Obama the “Arbiter in Chief.”

As Vice President-elect Biden said of his role as an advisor:

“If in fact there is no consensus, [I’d] go to the president of the United States and say, ‘Mr. President, I think we should be doing this, cabinet member so-and-so thinks that. You’re going to have to resolve what it is we think we should do.’ ”

The back-and-forth over when to hold a confirmation hearing for Eric Holder, President-electBarack Obama‘s choice for attorney general, isn’t simply a matter of saving a date on the Senate calendar. It’s an early test of strength for minority Republicans on the eve of one-party Democratic rule in Washington.

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer

Even with a Democrat in the White House and strong Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are making clear that they won’t be ignored — and warning Obama that he shouldn’t expect swift confirmation of Holder or any other Cabinet choices.

“It’s not a coronation,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said of Holder’s confirmation hearings.

To anyone who understands political lexicon, his comments and those of a parade of other Judiciary Committee Republicans were clear warning shots fired from a fading Congress toward the Democratic leaders of the next one — for the benefit of anyone who believes one-party rule will mean quick or easy governing.

“Think globally; act locally” was an axiom for a long time — and with good reason. “What is good for the goose” may not at all be good for the gander.

Should the U.S. be more in step with the United Nations and follow a model like that of the European Union? Well, lets think….

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By Cal Thomas

“For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr. Blainey forecasts its establishment as some time in the next 200 years. I think it could arrive much sooner.

The European Union might be Barack Obama‘s model, as could be the United Nations. In nominating his top campaign aide, Susan Rice, to be America’s ambassador to the U.N., Mr. Obama also announced his intention to raise the post to Cabinet rank. In his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama wrote, “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these rules are worth following.”

In fact, the message it sends is that the ideas and ideals that made America unique in the world are no longer worth following

Several news stories recently served as reminders that the United Nations has no special corner on the wisdom market.

And more often than not the U.N. takes down an anti-American and an anti-Israel path.

No matter how troubled, divided and worrisome the U.S. Congress may be, we at Peace and Freedom have much more trust and confidence in the Congress than in the United Nations.

In fact, many trumped up and just plain stupid accusations, decrees, positions and opinions emerge from the great deliberative body in New York.

And though we have our disagreements and problems with the U.S. Congress, we can vote for the members of the House and Senate and our free press and legal system holds them accountable: just ask William Jefferson or Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who are both in the slammer for corruption while elected members of the U.S. Congress.

Rod Blagojevich is playing out his corruption cards on the state level.

But even these American rascals are preferable to some of the world’s “diplomats.”

The Ambassador to the U.N. from Zimbabwe, Uganda, Iran, North Korea and a host of other nations has your American best interest at heart? Really? Hardly.

And who pays for the U.N. ? You do. As an American, you pay for more U.N. projects, reports, trips, vacations, boondoggles and corruption than any other group of citizens on earth.

If the U.S. agrees to even more U.N. say in the world — expect to pay even more.

Israel recently was taken to task by a UN body on the issue of human rights.

The Human Rights Council, in its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), raised concerns about Israel’s security wall, its detention of young Palestinians, and what they called ‘illegal’ Jewish settlements.

The most vocal members of the Human Rights group critical of Israel in the UN? Syria, Egypt and Iran.

In November, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel said that Israel had made a final decision not to participate in a U.N. forum on racism and urged other countries to boycott what she termed an “anti-Israel tribunal.”

Israel and the United States walked out of the first conference in protest over draft texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state — language that was later dropped.

Then we have the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — a UN group headed currently by its director-general, Egyptian-born Mohamed ElBaradei.

On the possibility of a nuclear weapon program in Iran, Mr. El Baradei said Iran had failed to “provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities.”
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Mr. ElBaradei also said that he cannot exclude the possibility that there are “military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.” He’s complained – well, “complain” may be too harsh a characterization; he’s noted – that Iran has not been transparent to “the extent to which information contained in the relevant documentation is factually correct….”

But the IAEA refuses to codemn Iran or come to any really concete conclusions on Iran’s nuclear progam.

Then we have widely reported abuses by the “peacekeepers” from the United Nations, usually in Africa. The Blue Helmets of the UN have committed rape and other atrocities while on paid UN “peacekeeping” missions. These horrible acts almost eliminate the good that UN peacekeepers so often do around the globe.

UN Peacekeepers or “Blue Helmets”

The leader at the United Nations just now is Ban Ki-moon from South Korea. He is an admirable and gentle man who is easily run over by leaders who will promise him anything and deliver nothing. This was his fate after the typhoon destroyed Myanmar: the junta promised to allow all aid and assisance into the country and as soon as the U.N. Secretary-General departed the deal was off.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.(AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)

No; we find no special wisdom at the United Nations, and little fortitude, strength and honesty, despite a lot of good the international body can do. In fact, we have great hope for the promise of a better UN. But we do see now a lot of mumbo jumbo, doublespeak, gobledegook, corruption, lies and playing fast and loose with the facts and other people’s money at the UN.

And the UN’s own inability to end wrongdoing and corruption, which runs to its core, is also well documented.

So when 650 scientists recently disputed UN claims on global warming, Al Gore may have been shocked and appalled. We at Peace and Freedom weren’t even tickled with the slightest bit of dismay.

Al Gore (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

In his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama wrote, “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these rules are worth following.”

Really?
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Our best wishes to Susan Rice, President-elect Obama’s choice to represent the United States at the UN. But Susan Rice should know two things: she is going into a land of corruption even greater than that found in Illinois and the U.S. Congress. And the real power players in the Obama Administration will be in Washington DC near the White House and not in New York at the UN — if history is any guide.

But we don’t know if history is any guide for how the U.S. will interact with the U.N. for the next four years. Because Mr. Obama and Ms. Rice haven’t exactly said, have they?

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations nominee Susan Rice listens as U.S. President-elect Barack Obama announces his national security team during a news conference in Chicago December 1, 2008.REUTERS/John Gress (UNITED STATES)
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Susan Rice Starts Her Own Transition
Team at the State Department

From Fox News

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — Susan Rice — reportedly has plans to install her own transition team within the State Department.

The first sign of cracks in President-elect Barack Obama’s foreign policy team of rivals emerged on Monday as his choices for secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations visited the State Department.

As Secretary of State-pick Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. envoy-choice Susan Rice separately visited the diplomatic agency’s headquarters in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, persons familiar with the transition said that Rice wants to install her own transition team inside the department.

Such a move by an incoming U.N. ambassador is rare, if not unprecedented, because the job is based at the United Nations in New York, where Rice already has a small transition staff, the sources familiar with the incoming administration.

The push by Rice, an early Obama supporter whose position the President-elect wants to elevate to a cabinet post, is also a signal that she intends to use her influence with the new president to play a more significant role than previous U.N. envoys, they said. The transition sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Officials with Clinton’s transition team declined to comment on the matter, and aides to Rice could not immediately be reached. State Department officials declined to comment on issues related to the transition.

It was not clear if Clinton and Rice — who had strained relations during the Democratic primaries because of Rice’s steadfast backing of Obama — saw each other at the State Department as Clinton left the building shortly after Rice arrived.